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Month August 2017

What to do with our overflowing abundance this year (everyone giving us) of Zucchini? Well, Zucchini bread of course! Best ever recipe here . I promise you this one is a keeper-easy, moist, and delicious bread. Slowly but surely the container garden is dwindling down to one tomato plant that is still producing, and has produced 27 tomatoes. One plant!! I thought both of the bigger plants were producing, but it turns out just the one. How unreal is that? He recently got knocked in half by wind, but still has a whopping 5 tomatoes trying to ripen. All of my New Guinea impatiens are still blooming, along with my hardy and always blooming geraniums. I bought all of my plants this year from Bauer’s Market and Garden Place in La Crescent, MN. The shrubs have quadrupled in size and after growing in soil full of fungus gnats (thanks big box potting soil) my mini sunflower flowers have bloomed. The zinnias planted with them have no buds, so no zinnias this year. All in all I’ve been very fortunate to have the tomatoes I’ve grown, most around here haven’t had such luck. Again, I’m thankful for Purple Cow Organics potting soil, tomato gro, and their bio-active fertilizer. The nights are getting cooler, so eventually we’ll have to clean up our deck. We’ve already transplanted a sick tree we are hoping to save. Almost time to buy our fall mums. Some time back I posted a picture of part of my blue glass/ ball glass collection and someone asked if it is hard to keep clean. Yes, yes it is. Twice a year I have to stand on the counter top and take down all of the glass and antiques and wash them up. Not easy and the last few years I’ve had to do it in stages. Here is half of it taken down, cleaned and polished and put back up. Until next time–be well!

This past weekend we drove down to Madison WI for our first trip this year to the Dane County Farmers’ Market. It’s been awhile. We have had several local farmers’ markets we’ve been doing business with for a couple of years now. This year much to our disappointment one of them is selling produce that looks pretty bad and their corn made me really sick. There’s an older lady that runs the stand who is very friendly and we’ve known her for years and get a kick out of her mainly because she really speaks her mind. I asked her if anyone else had complained about getting sick from the corn and she said “Well you know they use A LOT of chemicals in their fields, more now than they’ve ever used to keep up.” We know we cannot always get organic produce, and unless it is noted at the stand, we know most of what we buy has had some chemicals used. Sadly more and more I am getting sick from chemicals, additives and all the crap that’s in our food supply. So, we stopped patronizing this stand and one other that just stopped selling with no fair warning. The Dane County Farmers’ Market is the largest producers-only market in the United States. We started out for Madison at 6:00 am and got there, after a couple of stops, by 7:30 am. Even at that hour the parking ramps were packed, the streets were lined, and the throng of market goers was strong. What you do once you get there is join the moving queue. The market farmers’ are laid out in a circle that surrounds the state capitol building. So when you join you walk in a circle and when you spot something on a farmers’ table you hop out of the moving line to buy it. Once purchased back into the line you go. This can wear you out. I promise. We used to get here around 11 am–it’s really packed then. But you know, 7:30 am isn’t much better. It’s a popular market filled with lots and lots of locally grown food. We love our farmers’ and I’m such a big believer in locally grown and knowing your farmer well. It looks like we’ll have to go there a few more times so that I have plenty of produce to process for winter. It’s hard to see by the photos, but we purchased almost two weeks of produce. We were able to get 1 # of green beans, 1 head of cauliflower, broccoli, 1 squash, 4 ears of corn, 4 zucchini, 2 bunches of carrots, 1 leek, 2 cucumbers, a bunch of kale, fingerling potatoes, 4 heirloom tomatoes and a beautiful bouquet of local flowers (of course) for $15.75. You absolutely cannot beat that. Once home I set about to clean, trim and repackage the produce. I shredded the zucchini right away for zucchini bread. Our dinner menu reflects 11 days of eating this produce so that we enjoy it when it is at its freshest. Next trip will be to buy some tomatoes in bulk to make sauce with. http://janrd.com/blog/5454/divine-tomatoes

Sun, just the right amount of sun, is essential to a successful container garden. We live in an apartment that does not get southern exposure, and the western exposure we get is HOT, quite hot, from about 1pm each day through 6pm. Watering plants in the early am hours here does not work. Also keeping houseplants thriving without southern exposure can be quite a challenge. I have fifteen African violets that I move around in our bedroom to catch the sun from the west, and then as it creeps around the side of the building I have a shelf in my office loaded with succulents and cactus plants, not to mention my husband’s ever growing bonsai collection, trying to catch the last rays of sun before it disappears for another day. Lots to keep up with. I’ve killed way more than I’ve saved but this year I’ve actually had some much appreciated success.

First how can you tell if your fig is ripe, overripe, or just right when you see figs for sale in the market?

Pick the fig up and smell it near the stem to see if it smells sweet–honey like. If it does it is ripe. Unlike avocado’s figs do not ripen once you get them home. If there is stickiness near the stem the fig is overripe. For the last 6 or 7 years I have purchased a dozen or so figs and found that I really like them. I wouldn’t say I could eat them all the time, but once or twice a year -yes.

Can it be that summer is almost over? As of this month I’ve been at my container garden now for almost 8 months. From my failed starter plants I worked on in January and February, to the young plants I nurtured inside March until late April that became my super producers all summer long. My two 8″ tomato plants grew to almost 3 ft and are still producing tomatoes. So far I’ve harvested 12 med., med large tomatoes with about 10 more ready to turn any day. My spindly tomato plant that survived a couple of frosts ended up giving me over 30 cherry tomatoes. Best tomatoes ever! My rosemary has quadrupled in size, as have my shrubs (doubled) and this years New Guinea Impatiens are gorgeous. Herbs have been dried and preserved and several of my plant containers have been emptied, and cleaned up for next year. In just a few weeks fall will be upon on and I definitely feel like this year’s container garden was my best yet. A lot of work, but a lot of rewards and I’m already looking ahead to next year. P.S. Although my pumpkin plants bit the dust last week thanks to leaf rot and gnats, my sunflowers and zinnias are ready to bloom any day now. Pictures soon! Until next time–be well!